Anthropogenic CO2 emissions have been growing about four times faster since 2000 than during the previous decade, and despite efforts to curb emissions in a number of countries which are signatories of the Kyoto Protocol. Emissions from the combustion of fossil fuel and land use change reached the mark of 10 billion tones of carbon in 2007. Natural CO2 sinks are growing, but more slowly than atmospheric CO2, which has been growing at 2 ppm per year since 2000. This is 33% faster than during the previous 20 years. All of these changes characterize a carbon cycle that is generating stronger climate forcing and sooner than expected.

Emissions are now running above even the most fossil fuel intensive of the IPCC’s scenarios (A1F1), driven by strong growth in China and India. Here’s the press release from the Oak Ridge lab, and there’s good analysis at Climate Progress. A PDF of the full presentation is available here[1.5MB].

More methane news: the Telegraph (UK) reports that a British survey vessel, the James Clark Ross, observed around 250 methane plumes in deep water over a 30 sq mile area west of Svalbard. It’s apparently thought that this system has been active since the end of the last ice age. The Independent also picks up the story, but doesn’t add much more information.

[Update 27/9: Nature provides a round up, apparently intent on debunking “alarmist predictions” of imminent hydrate release (grab it before it disappears behind a paywall), but the interesting bit comes at the end:

Globally, atmospheric methane concentrations increased by 7.5 parts per billion to nearly 1,800 parts per billion during 2007 after almost zero growth since 1999. The upward trend is likely to continue this year, says Ed Dlugokencky, who oversees the methane database run by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado. “Our data suggest increased emissions in the Arctic and the tropics,” he says. “Both regions were apparently warmer and wetter than average.”

Not much comfort there… [update: this link to the text may not expire]]

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19 thoughts on “Smokestack lightning”

Well, given that the CO2 emissions show no sign of being curtailed, and being that the oceans are apparently showing a reluctance to absorb any more CO2, then we would surely expect rising temperatures, not falling. I ask the question, therefore, to those believers in AGW here: How long will you carry on believing that CO2 is resulting in warming – when it clearly isn’t? http://icecap.us/images/uploads/MSUCRUCO2.jpg Put a year on it – what year (should temps carry on falling) will you start to wonder that the theory is wrong? Gavin Schmidt said five years. What’s yours?

It’s amusing that warmists are only saying that, “Global warming no more means every year will be warmer than the previous” since that became apparent! As there has been no accelerated warming for a whole decade now, it’s become necessary to qualify the global warming alarmism when the facts don’t match the statements. However, that said, I don’t think it’s at all necessary to remind everyone that it won’t necessarily mean that each year will become hotter. The thing is, it’s not becoming hotter every five years, or now even every ten! Warmists can continue to say “This is weather”, but for how long? As my original questions stands, for how long can warmists stand by and watch global temperatures NOT RISE before admitting that something is wrong with the theory? What will become of the warmists’ argument if we are still seeing no larger temperature anomaly in 2018 than we saw in 1998 – that’s 20 years with no accelerated warming? There has to come a point at which we all question our point of view if the evidence doesn’t match our theory. My question remains open and unanswered; what year will ‘you’ question your personal opinion that CO2 causes the world to warm? As has already been stated, CO2 emissions show no abatement, methane release either, and maybe a saturation point for the world’s oceans. Yet the globe shows no sign of increased temperatures – quite the reverse of course. At what point will you begine to realise that the world isn’t flat at all, or else we would all of fallen off by now? See what I did there?

Ignoring your usual bluster, you’ll find what I consider an excellent answer to your central question in this post at Open Mind. Tamino begins his post thus:

In a previous post, I stated that the current trend in global temperature increase is sufficient that by 2015, data will probably establish that the planetâ€™s temperature has definitely not stabilized or begun to decline.

He goes on to explain, in detail, why. If you’d care to place a bet with me on Tamino’s terms, I’d be happy to take the warm side.

Gareth. Don’t think there’s any cause to say, “ignoring your usual bluster”, but your rudeness aside, you too fail to answer the question (as usual) and instead rely on someone who amusingly has a website named ‘Open Mind’. Irony is wonderful, isn’t it? Tamino’s isn’t even an answer! It’s an opinion that in seven years warming will re-establish itself! So the question still remains open and unanswered then. We can all argue about our opinions Gareth, but facts are facts. Despite the unceasing increase in CO2 emissions, etc. etc. there has been no accelerated warming for ten years now. By what count of years will you worry about your theory? Simply put a year on it. Why are warmists ever-reluctant to put a year on their theory, but so willing to believe that CO2 emissions will be catastrophic (when the evidence doesn’t support this)?

Gareth. I had to smile when I saw that date for Tamino’s piece. The very next day was when all the data came out showing a plummeting of temperature across the globe! The UAH had gone from + 0.59 in Jan 07 to – 0.15 in Jan 08. In one calendar year it wiped out the entire net gain made in ‘warming’ over nearly thirty years! I notice that the comments ended in February. Hee, hee.

If global temperatures are stable or falling then one can only presume the following papers on multi-regional flora and faunal phenology are part of a vast global conspiracy amongst plants, animals, insects, and those who study their behaviour, ie, scientists observing the real world:

Long-Term Changes in Ice Phenology of the Yellow River in the Past Decades.
Jiang. Y.; Wenjie Dong; Song Yang; Ma, Jun; Yundi Jiang.
Journal of Climate (0894-8755)
September 2008.Vol.21,Iss.18;p.4879-4886

Climate change and its impact on birch pollen quantities and the start of the pollen season an example from Switzerland for the period 1969-2006
Frei, T.
International Journal of Biometeorology
SEP 2008.Vol.52,Iss.7;p.667-674

Climatic effects on the breeding phenology and reproductive success of an arctic-nesting goose species
Dickey, M. et al
Global Change Biology
September 2008.Vol.14,Iss.9;p.1973-1985

Flower morphology, phenology and visitor patterns in an alpine community on Mt Olympos, Greece
Makrodimos, N.
Flora
February 2008.Vol.203,Iss.6;p.449-468

The impact of climate warming on water temperature, timing of hatching and young-of-the-year growth of fish in shallow lakes in the Netherlands
Mooij, W.M; L.N. De Senerpont Domis and S. Hülsmann.
Journal of Sea Research
January 2008.Vol.60,Iss.1-2;p.32

Sonny. EVEN the surface records show a warming anomaly of only 0.4 degrees C in thirty years. But you’re confusing the issue (surprise, surprise!). There has been some warming, but it hasn’t accelerated in ten years. Do you get that bit, Sonny? And you’re another one reluctant to set a year then Sonny?

Gareth. I’m not at all a betting man. And going by your history, you shouldn’t be either! Science isn’t about betting. It’s about having a theory and endeavoring to prove that theory correct – and if not, to abandon it. You STILL haven’t answered the question. Why am I not surprised? Are you going to? Warmists do themselves and their ideas no favours by refusing to answer very basic questions on their belief. Readers will note that there are three warmists above – and all three refuse to answer a very simple question.

My question remains open and unanswered; what year will â€˜youâ€™ question your personal opinion that CO2 causes the world to warm?

Tamino’s post answers you.

And I go with Tamino too. I say “too” because despite your perjorative comment:

Readers will note that there are three warmists above – and all three refuse to answer a very simple question.

Gareth had already implicitly referred you to Tamino’s post for your answer. So now you have an answer from the majority of the “warmists” here. Tamino’s method looks sound to me and will provide a clear result, using that method resolution is likely by around 2015 and cannot be later than 2028.

If this cooling is enough to claim it signals an end to GW then it should be apparent here, because that is the difference between the trend and the observation. But where is it? Far from a massive cooling that means AGW isn’t real there just seems to be a wiggle. Like the many other wiggles since 1975.

PS Re the IceCap.us graph. Why did they start it in 2002 and not, oooh, say 2000? I wonder…

Harry’s question uses the similar sloppy logic that I might use, for example, if were to ask Harry what year do you intent to stop beating your wife and children?

Personally, when it comes to science, I *believe* knowledge is constantly changing. I also *believe* that it’s crucial to continue to gather a cross-spectrum of evidence that does not alone rely on models and man-made measuring devices taking temperatures in various levels of the atmosphere and ocean. Observation of natural events is crucial. A tiny snippet of those observations has been presented in my prior post. They are not question of belief, but of fact, and I ask Harry to please offer an alternative explanation for why they are taking place.

Gareth has also posted real world observation of changes in non-living systems such as glacier melt in NZ. These also are indisputable factual observations. Harry, why are glaciers worldwide, melting? If you require academic papers on the subject, I can oblige with a selection, of, say, 50 of the most recent, worldwide?

The year that those plants and animals and glaciers demonstrate that global warming is not occurring, I will then re-examine fundamental tenets of physics and chemistry that dictates a direct causal link between CO2 and warming. I will then wear a dress to see Harry’s being awarded a Nobel for his paper proving how his *belief* that physics and chemistry is flawed, has saved the world.
Seriously.
Because I for one really, really wish that Harry was right, and magical thinking and flawed rhetoric will save the day.

Sonny. I’ve no idea why you want to be rude, but that’s your choice. perhaps it’s the way you’ve been raised. You will remember (actually you won’t) that I have never said chemistry or physics is flawed. That’s yet another example of your clumsy posting. Try and comment on what someone has actually said, rather than what you THINK they have said Sonny. Many of the titles in your pointless listing above indicate that they have absolutely nothing to do with climate change – but you included them anyway. Very amusingly, you accuse me of sloppy logic then say we shouldn’t just rely on man-made measuring devices! I laughed out so loud my daughter wanted to know what was amusing me. Priceless, Sonny. You also ehibit your lack of scientific knowledge. Glacial meltings and observations are ‘circumstantial’ evidence. You should learn the difference. ‘Circumstantial’ evidence is, or can be, ‘extraneous’. It therefore follows that it cannot be used to convict in itself. You have a lot to learn Sonny. Principally, that if the world is cooling then there’s no need for you to question your understanding of physics and chemistry – and no one else will either. Science learns and moves on. What we will have discovered is that carbon dioxide forcing is not the full story. This doesn’t require a re-examination of the basics of our scientific understanding at all. Many scientists, like Roger Pielke, have been trying to get that through heads like yours for some time. With you, I’m afraid it’s lost.
[Last sentence cut – Harry, if you can’t be polite, you’ll be edited further.]

Cobblyworlds. I didn’t want an answer from Tamino – that’s why I didn’t ask him. I asked warmists here like you and Gareth. However, I’ll take that as seven years then for both you and Gareth – 2015 it is then.

You evidently didn’t notice that I was careful not to mention the word ‘cooling’ (except in reply to Sonny above) as you do. I said “there has been no accelerated warming for ten years now”. It’s difficult to assign the word, although it’s inferred by what is apparently about to happen to the smoothed line here [see post below]. You say, “where is it?”. There it is, there!

I was of course waiting for someone to say ‘why start the Icecap graph there’. I was so hoping that Gareth would trot out his “cherry-picking” that he has as an hotkey on his keyboard – the one by the side of “troll”. Thinking back to the mid to late 1980s, can you remember the warmists back then giving us the graph of temp since 1979? I can. Of course, there comes a point when it’s legitimate to start the graph from somewhere. Ten years of no accelerated warming, then I say that’s fine – to graphically show that FACT.

Sonny can stand at his window in his dress looking out at his tits nesting early, but if the world ain’t warming, then it ain’t warming. Ten years is an awful long time for global warming not to show itself despite an increasing CO2 release and lack of absorption from the oceans etc. I currently have the email address of an official bod at the CRU in East Anglia. We’ve agreed to email each other in the coming years. He’s focused on the belief that warming will definitely re-establish itself by 2010, and we’ll see higher temps than 1998 by 2013. If he’s wrong, then boy am I going to let him know it. If I’m wrong (that even by 2013, 1998 will remain the peak) then I’ll convert to a warmist. With the PDO shift and a lack of sunspots I think I’m cruising. He thinks this is all La Nina masking.

Harry, your tone in your most recent posts is way over the top. You want to defend your position? Fine, do it without recourse to sarcasm and rudeness. I am the sole arbiter of that: if you don’t like my decisions…

I admit, I’m tired. We’ve been up much of the night as we take the boat out to the reef, and I no longer find the irrationality of skeptics amusing. To quote Garnaut, ‘But to heed the views of the minority of genuine sceptics in the relevant scientific communities would be to hide from reality. It would be imprudent beyond the normal limits of human irrationality.’ (p593).

I once found flawed logic to be amusing; indeed, I wrote a thesis describing how we use it to entertain people in a fictional setting. My example to Harry of flawed rhetoric is a standard we use to teach students deduction, induction, and the various forms of logic. To take it as a personal slight is to demonstrate an absence of understanding of scientific reasoning. This, combined with the approach that real world evidence is to be disregarded as circumstantial, is a textbook example or irrationality, and one I will incorporate in future lectures.

I shall now take off my dress (I’m a she, not a he, and), climb into my wetsuit for the last time, and make my final dive on the reef on this, my last trip as skipper, and most likely my last trip before I leave Oz for NZ. The reef is dying, you see, doomed to extinction because the economic costs of preventing its passing are too high. Perhaps the death of the Great Barrier Reef is only circumstantial, but with me on the boat are some very grim scientists. We find the irrevocable ‘circumstantial’ death of the world’s largest living organism beyond words.